A Development Visions Approach of Designing Rural Strategies

The paper aims to present possible development visions for the rural areas in a candidate country to access the EU. The proposed objective is to provide a decision-making tool useful in strategic planning process, by designing models of integrated rural development, applicable at country or regional levels. The scenarios method was used to conceive alternatives for rural development and design scenario matrices, focusing on the institutional and socio-economic modules of analysis. The paper proposes a trend scenario, based on the potentials and constraints identified in the analysis phase, and 3 goal scenarios, based on distinctly different sets of goals or development visions. The expected outcome consists in development of the potential for economic diversification in rural areas emphasizing the creation of local/regional employment and income opportunities, in several alternatives supplied by different visions of development.rural development, economic diversification, Community/Rural/Urban Development, O18, O15,

European economic integration: a conflict of visions

European Union

The pervasive nature of heterodox economic spaces at a time of neoliberal crisis: towards a “postneoliberal” anarchist future

Re-reading the economic landscape of the western world as a largely non-capitalist landscape composed of economic plurality, this paper demonstrates how economic relations in contemporary western society are often embedded in non-commodified practices such as mutual aid, reciprocity, co-operation and inclusion. By highlighting how the long-overlooked lived practices in the contemporary world of production, consumption and exchange are heavily grounded in the very types and essences of non-capitalist economic relations that have long been proposed by anarchistic visions of employment and organization, this paper displays that such visions are far from utopian: they are embedded firmly in the present. Through focusing on the pervasive nature of heterodox economic spaces in the UK in particular, some ideas about how to develop an anarchist future of work and organization will be proposed. The outcome is to begin to engage in the demonstrative construction of a future based on mutualism and autonomous modes of organization and representation. © 2012 The Authors. Antipode© 2012 Antipode Foundation Ltd.

(WP 2018-01) Ethics \u3cem\u3eand\u3c/em\u3e Economics: A Complex Systems Approach

This chapter examines the nature of ethics and economics as a single subject of investigation, and uses a complex systems approach to characterize the nature of that subject. It then distinguishes mainstream economic and social economic visions of it, where the former assumes that market processes encompass social processes, and the latter assumes that market processes are embedded in social processes. For each vision, strong and weak theses are compared. Both visions are first explained in terms of their respective views of the positive-normative distinction, then in terms of a central normative principle, and then in terms of their policy strategies. The chapter closes with comments on the future status of ethics and economics as a single subject of investigation

Institutional matrices and institutional changes

This article represents a paper for the 5th International Symposium on Evolutionary Economics “Economic Transformation and Evolutionary Theory of J. Schumpeter” (Pushchino, Moscow region, Russia, 25-27 September, 2003). There is shown, that the comparison of two well-known works of Josef Schumpeter (“The Theory of Economic Development” and “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy”) displays a discrepancy between the two visions of development of market economic systems – evolutionary and transformational, i.e. non-evolutionary transition into a qualitatively different state. No theoretical schema that would reconcile logically these two visions was left to us by Schumpeter. Is it possible to deal with this discrepancy in a correct way? What in economy changes evolutionarily and what is transformed? What structures persist and where is the room for institutional changes? An attempt to find the answer within the framework of the theory of institutional matrices is presented.institutional matrices theory Schumpeter institutional changes

Roads investment and economic growth : similarity or divergence between developed and developing countries : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Planning at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

This research investigates how arguments for economic growth are perceived and advanced to promote road investment. In particular, it addresses the question of whether there is similarity or divergence between developed and developing countries given their different growth trajectories. In literature, the relationship between building roads and achieving economic growth is heavily reliant on quantitative tools while ignoring the socio-economic and political contextual details of developed and developing countries. Using the Aristotelian concept of phronēsis, the research undertakes a comparative case study involving New Zealand and Pakistan. Phronēsis is an intellectual virtue capable of incorporating practical problems and contextual issues in everyday life. The concept was operationalized for this thesis by devolving it into three main questions in which the roads policy direction, the associated processes and discursive pragmatism was explored. Detailed analysis of two major roading infrastructure projects, MacKays to Peka Peka (M2PP) in the Wellington region of New Zealand and a Ring Road in Lahore, Pakistan, shows that roads investment is promoted on the basis of national visions and policies without robust evidence of how economic growth will be achieved. The findings indicate that the national visions, related to case study projects, are not based on robust analyses and research but rather on strategic needs that advance the agenda of the powerful. The research found that the discourse of economic growth in each project was based on similar arguments about travel time saving, efficiency and employment growth regardless of public consultations. The research concludes that ‘economic growth’ is a niche created, advanced, and interpreted by power to achieve its strategic objectives in road development without contextual differences being considered in developed and developing countries

The Future of the Western World: The OECD and the Interfutures Project

In 1975, the OECD created a research committee entitled ‘Interfutures. Research project into the development of the advanced industrial societies in harmony with the developing world’. The purpose of Interfutures was to examine how the new tools of futures research could be put to use in order to shape strategies for dealing with a new phenomenon of ‘interdependence’, and to set out a ‘long-term vision’ of the Western world. This article argues that Interfutures was appointed in order to draft an alternative image of the future to two radical visions of the early 1970s. The first was the so-called New International Economic Order. The second was the 1972 Club of Rome report, The limits to growth. As a response to these two visions, Interfutures presented a vision of globalization as a process oriented around an expanding world market, piloted by Western interests and continued resource extraction

Forging the future: community leadership and economic change in Coös County, New Hampshire

Author Michele Dillon conducted a case study of community change in Coös County, New Hampshire, for two-and-a-half years (June 2009-December 2011) to investigate how local community leaders in Coös assess the initiatives, challenges, opportunities, and progress in the North Country during this time of economic transition. Her primary data-gathering method included personal interviews with community leaders, supplemented by observation, documentary, and survey data. Dillon discusses how there is a strong consensus among community leaders that Coös needs to work together as a county with a unified vision and voice while respecting the specific character, strengths, and needs of each local community. The leaders\u27 visions of economic development and how economic progress should be achieved, however, vary

Quality of life, well-being and regional economic development: a thought piece

This think piece, sets out the case that the next round of Regional Economic Strategies (RESs) produced by RDAs, should explicitly make quality of life and well-being the organising principles at the heart of their visions and their strategies. An explicit focus on people’s quality of life potentially offers rigorous methodologies for differentiating between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ growth. In addition enhancing people’s well-being will support RDAs in successfully achieving their goals regarding enterprise, investment, skills, productivity and sustainable communities